Getting Mortal
by thermodynamic
Summary: Frannie's husband taught her how to shoot, before he left.


_My baby's on his last life, darling_

_I've got to stick around 'til morning_

— Velvet Crowbar, Lana Del Rey

* * *

When Luis shows up at her front door, she wants to slam it in his face and catch the tip of his nose as she does it. She hasn't washed her hair in weeks; there's deep hollows under her eyes from crying, something she never did before Darrel's sentencing; she'll need to get a job sooner rather than later, pay the attorney, wrangle her grieving children, but it's so, so much infinitely easier to pour herself another glass of her husband's whiskey and light another smoke and make that tomorrow's problem.

_This is what happens when you marry a redskin,_ her mother's voice echoes in her head like the reverberation from a gunshot. _You're as good as white trash now, Frances, livin' in that rundown mess of a house with four kids and a drunk husband. At least you don't have bruises on your arms and your nose busted up, he's left you with that much._

And not much else.

"You get the hell outta here." She has her husband's pistol in hand; he taught her how to shoot, back in Lubbock, after he'd met her at a USO dance. It'd still been a game to her then, a pointless bit of rebellion before she returned to her daddy's house, but he'd always had such a serious gleam in his eyes, his massive hand covering hers. "You get the _hell_ outta here."

"I brought you some cash, to help out with the bills," he says, looking more like a kid in detention than the new Ramirez leader he wants to style himself as. "New shipment came in last night—"

She wishes she had enough self-respect to throw the wad of bills back in his face, but she snatches them and tucks them in her pocket, can't be looking gift horses in the mouth right now. _The kind of gift you give widows._ "It should've been you," she says. "You have a lot of nerve showin' up here, bringin' me anything—"

"Dammit, I never asked him to take the charge, I wouldn't have—"

"You sure didn't do much to stop him either, did you?" Her voice rises up past hysteria, reaches a pitch only the stray dogs running around the neighborhood can hear.

"This is why I don't fuck with white broads, not you, not Mary _Shepard_." He lights up. "Y'all got no volume control."

Her hand shakes with the effort not to slap him.

"It's gonna be okay, don't worry about it none," he says with all the reckless optimism of a twenty-two-year-old boy. "Listen, Darry, is he home—"

Her aim is true as she raises the pistol, points the barrel smack-dab in the middle of his forehead. _Shoot until you empty the clip,_ shijéí_, don't freeze up, don't hesitate, just like that, yeah, just like that._ "You ever come here askin' for my baby again, I won't miss."

"He's the man of the house now, ain't he?" He smirks fearlessly, crinkling the black teardrop tattooed under his eye; _don't you ever point it at something you don't want dead._ "I was runnin' product at his age, younger even, so was Timmy."

"You better not fuck up that kid, now that his daddy's gone," she says, though she's only seen Timmy Shepard a handful of times, and was never too fond of his mama, and has enough of her own to worry about. "You better not turn him into his daddy."

He grabs the gun from her before she can hope to resist, throws it to the ground. "Loaded, too, huh? Darrel wasn't fuckin' around."

"Test me again, you can find out just how much he taught me."

"Y'all really got a romance for the ages, huh, a regular Bonnie an' Clyde?" He acts just like his older brother did, talks like him too, with the same nasty sneer pulling at the edges of his mouth. "And your biggest problem is still how you're gonna pay them bills."

She reaches across the bed in the morning and her body aches for him, she sees his aftershave on the bathroom counter and she wants to start crying all over again, she remembers the Chuck Berry cassettes he sang along to on the drive to Tulsa and the bandages she wrapped around his knuckles before boxing matches and how she'd lie with her head on his chest, sweaty and drained in the late Texas afternoon, her blood alchemizing into fire every time he touched her. When did their future stop burning bright in front of them? When did they get so old? "Fuck you."

"That what you want?"

She moves for the pistol; he laughs, more startled than mocking, sounds his age again. She and Darrel used to be twenty-two, once, Darry still more of a cute novelty than a responsibility; Darrel would carry him around on his shoulders and talk about the legacy he'd inherit, and she'd been naive enough to find it oh-so-romantic. "I never made a broad do nothin', goddamn, quit twitchin' at me like that." His voice lowers an octave. "You're a whore, Frannie, the only reason your man don't know is because Al and I kept our traps shut 'bout it. Don't act like I'm outta line here."

Denying it would be beneath her dignity, and Frannie was raised a lady a lifetime ago— she just tilts her chin up at him, watches the cigarette between his fingers burn and crinkle into nothingness. Clouds gather on the horizon, the air humid and sticky; there's going to be rain soon. "You ever figure out who Ponyboy's daddy was?" he asks.

"You ever gonna admit you got a daughter?"

His upper lip curls; she smiles, leans against the broken screen door Darrel never replaced, bats a mosquito away from her head. Her face feels like it's cracking, it's been so long since she managed that expression. "Go home, Luis, c'mon now, honey," she says as sweet as apple pie. "You're a lil' young for me yet."

He still nicks his chin with his razor when he shaves. Jesus, what a fucking kid. One of Darrel's biceps is the size of half his head.

"Never fucked with a white broad before," he says, his hands in his pockets. The gun points at him like a compass points north. "Y'all always lookin' for trouble, though. Carlos told me that much."

She finally lets herself remember all the screaming arguments, the drinking, the paychecks that never made it home, the days he spent away without a phone call or a word, how nothing was too petty for them to snipe about towards the end. Then his last, desperate plea for bail money, not so much as an apology left to spare for her. Then the cheap perfume she caught whiffs of at the breakfast table, the lipstick she found peeking over the edge of his collar once, the lies they both spun until they made something more real than the truth— and he could be anyone, but she thinks about Darrel rotting in prison for Luis's sake while he's fucking his wife and that's when she kisses him straight on, tangles her hands up in his messy hair, tries to pretend she's back in 1944 again and this isn't how her life really turned out.

The neighbors are probably watching. She hopes they enjoy the show.


End file.
